


nobody puts tony in a corner

by duchessy



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dirty Dancing Fusion, Dirty Dancing References, Fluff and Humor, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pining Tony Stark, Protective Steve Rogers, Protective Tony Stark, Steve is Patrick Swayze, The dirty dancing au stevetonies requested, tony is baby
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-18
Updated: 2020-04-18
Packaged: 2021-02-23 13:40:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23712391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/duchessy/pseuds/duchessy
Summary: “He’s with me,” Bucky supplied, wrapping an arm around Tony and pulling him closer to the group. Steve Rogers finally looked over at him, his golden hair sticking to his forehead and somehow not making him look like a drowned rat, his blue eyes guarded.“I carried a watermelon.”As soon as the words pushed their way out of his mouth like a torrential storm, Tony immediately wanted to launch himself into the lake where the crocodiles or piranhas, or whatever carnivorous animal that lived there, could devour him peacefully.Or, the one where Tony expects three weeks of hell with his parents at rich people camp, but instead learns how to dance because of Steve and falls in love with him along the way.
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Comments: 10
Kudos: 84





	nobody puts tony in a corner

**Author's Note:**

> Hey y'all! Hope everyone is keeping safe and as sane as possible! Here's a lil something I came up with after watching Dirty Dancing and falling in love with Patrick Swayze. If you guys like this, I'll write some more!

Ty pushed him back, making his feet trip over one another as his shoulder went careening into the back of the little old woman he’d seen earlier, sending her stumbling into the elderly man who Tony presumed was her husband. 

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” Tony mumbled, embarrassed, barely managing to catch the woman’s absent smile before he was pulled into Ty’s fumbling grasp once again. Tony let himself be maneuvered in the not-quite fox-trot that they’re barely managing, Ty’s severely misplaced confidence almost funny as he tried to impress Tony by telling him that he’s going to Cornell for _hotel management._

__

__

“Where are you going again?” Ty asked, his expression condescending and just a little smug, as if he knew he’s gonna get what he wants with Tony’s silence and his parents’ not very subtle appraisal of their son with a guy like Ty as they’d fox-trotted past them minutes ago. 

“MIT,” Tony answered, watching the shift in Ty’s expression with a sort of self-satisfaction that he’d been thriving off of every time one of his parents’ friends asked him where he was going next year. Ty’s face smoothed out again, that slick smile taking familiar residence on his face as he probably figured that Tony was majoring in something like _hotel management_. “You majoring in English?” Ty asked derisively, as if English was a worse major than fucking _hotel management._

__

__

“Mechanical engineering. I’m gonna take over my dad’s company one day,” Tony told him, before he immediately wants to shove the words back into his mouth. Ty’s smirk gets wider at that, somehow managing to look down on Tony despite being several inches shorter than him.

“Sure, sweetheart. You’re feisty, aren’t you,” he asked, barrelling on before Tony can respond. “I like that. I like that a lot.”

Tony was about to tell him just how little he cares about what a guy who is majoring in _hotel management_ and is named Ty fucking Stone thinks of him, when the music changed, hoots of delight going up from the couples of the middle-aged variety on the dance floor as the tempo picked up.

Ty grinned as he pulled Tony in closer to him, a too-large hand flimsily placed on Tony’s waist as he took the lead in a very butchered rendering of a mambo. Tony grimaced, looking around to see if he could make desperate eye contact with his mother and somehow pull off an escape.

A spotlight suddenly went careening past them to the centre of the dance floor, cueing the crowd to part in half. 

Tony turned away from Ty, craning his neck to see past the balding heads and stiff updos. There was a hushed gasp that went over the room, the steady beat of the music making Tony’s foot tap-tap without him really being conscious of the movement. That was when Tony saw them.

His first thought was: how the fuck is she dancing in those heels? They looked like two bodies, hard to separate from each other as they seemingly moved as one weird, mutant person accidentally manufactured in a lab with four arms and four feet, two of which were in high heels. Heels which barely touched the floor before they picked up again as the beautiful redheaded woman spun ‘round and ‘round, like in the impossible way of the Tazmanian Devil on the Looney Tunes Show, except far less hilarious and a lot more jaw-dropping. 

When Tony saw her partner, he really felt as if he was witnessing the Second Coming. The guy wasn’t so much leading the woman as he was playing with her, every push answered with an equal pull like a turbulent tied, as they spun circles around each other without managing to topple over somehow. His black shirt was loose and unbuttoned down to the middle of his chest, the rest of it tucked into the waistband of his tight black pants. A few blond locks had started to curl into his forehead from where his golden hair had been neatly pushed back with some pomade. His steps mirrored the erratic beat of Tony’s heart as he watched the two dancers battle it out in each other’s arms. 

“Who’s that?” Tony found himself asking, his eyes glued to the way the man drew the woman into his chest with a simple spin, before pushing her out, arms tucked in close to her body and red skirt flaring out like an eruption of fleeting flames arching into the sky. 

“Oh, them,” Ty said, his brows furrowed in a frown as he evidently failed to manage to keep Tony’s attention. “They’re the dance people. They’re here to keep the guests happy. They shouldn’t be showing off like that,” he nodded at the crowd who had ceased in their dancing completely to gape at the dancers. “That’s not gonna sell lessons.”

Tony didn’t really know how to respond to that, frowning at the way Ty spoke of the dancers that suggested he viewed them as tools that he used to further his business. Tony thought that they looked to be the only people in the room who seemed to be truly alive. 

He felt like him and his parents and the elderly couple he’d bumped into and Mr. Stone, they were all like the undead. Kind of moaning and groaning around the streets with their grey and blistering arms stretched out in front of them. The dancers though—they looked like people. They looked like every prince that Tony had dreamed about marrying from his books and the princesses they’d dance with at the spectacular balls, where no one else mattered. Tony desperately wanted to be like that. He wanted to live like that. 

Mr. Stone walked toward them just as Ty was aggressively signalling the dancers to stop, by slashing the tips of his fingers against his throat, furiously mouthing at them to cut it out. 

“Hey, kids. Having fun I hope?” Mr. Stone asked, the smirk evident in his voice as he eyed the way Ty’s arm was wrapped around Tony’s waist. Ty returned his slimy grin, tightening his grip around Tony, as if to show his father the prize he’d won, before letting go completely. 

“Actually, I’ve gotta excuse myself. I’m in charge of the games tonight,” Ty explained, making to leave, before turning to look at Tony again. “Would you like to help me get things set up?”

“Sure he would. Right, my boy?” Mr. Stone clapped Tony’s shoulder with his meaty hand, nearly sending him flying towards the old lady again. Tony pursed his lips into what he hoped turned out to be a somewhat proper looking smile on the other end, and nodded, almost sensing his parents’ expectant looks from across the room.

By some miracle upon miracle, Tony endured an evening of being shoved into a trick box by a red-faced “magician” who sawed him in “half” to the gasps and thrilled applause of the people gathered for games. He managed to smile weakly when Mr. Stone showed up again to tell him how much of a “good sport” he was, and just barely escaped his father’s call for him to join the game of poker that Howard and some of his friends were starting. 

Tony trotted out of the main house and into the brisk, summer night, feeling himself breathe in his first real breath of the day as the chirping of crickets and the faint sound of laughter and applause from the building he’d left behind became the background noise to his speeding thoughts. He started walking, no real destination in mind, his only real goal being that he doesn’t run into anyone who knew him.

The faint sound of music that he’d heard when he’d first left the main house began to get louder and louder as he started up a small stone path off to the side, farther away from the main house but somewhat close to the large cabin he was staying at with his parents for the three weeks they were to be at the Stone House. There was a large house there, up over a small hill and far enough away that he couldn’t really make it out from where he was. Through the branches that were in the way, Tony could make out a tune that was vaguely familiar and windows that were flashing red. 

Curious, Tony began to make his way up the hill that led away from their cabin, when he saw Bucky Barnes, the boy who’d helped them bring their luggage up when they had first driven into the resort in the morning. 

Bucky’s face was barely visible past the three, green oblong objects he was juggling in his arms, objects which Tony soon realized were watermelons. Bucky smiled when he saw him, but his brows quickly followed as he looked behind Tony’s shoulder at a faded sign that he’d passed by on his way.

“Hey, Tony, yeah?” Bucky asked him, barreling on before Tony had a chance to even nod. “What’re you doin’ up here?”

“I was taking a walk. What’s going on up there?” Tony pointed up at the house, watching with a raised eyebrow as one of the watermelons nearly flopped right out of Bucky’s grasp. 

Bucky frowned, readjusting his grip on the watermelon, stacking one precariously on top of the other two. Tony kind of hoped one would just—fall out onto the ground. “No guests allowed bud. House rules.”

“I can help with those,” Tony suggested, reaching forward to lift one of the watermelons trying desperately to abide by the rules of gravity into his own arms. He watched with his lips quirked up as Bucky contemplated him with the watermelon cradled in his arms, jutting his chin out in the direction of the house and turning back around.

“You better not go squealin’ to Daddy about this, man,” Bucky warned him, even as he led Tony up the steep path to the house. 

“Cross my heart,” Tony swore to him, trying not to drop his watermelon as they reached the large barn doors that were nearly vibrating with the force of the music behind them. 

Bucky turned to give him a worried glance, and Tony desperately hoped he could at least get to look inside before he was kicked out. “Your parents would kill me.” Tony scoffed at that; there was very little that he could do with his parents’ approval so that didn’t really phase him. 

“Not if they don’t find out.”

“Stone would kill me.”

“Which one? The one who nearly croaked last year or the one who’s at Cornell for _hotel management?”_

__

__

Bucky grinned, shifting his hold on the watermelon as he leant up against the doors. “Not bad, Stark,” he said, and pushed the doors open. 

Whatever Tony had been expecting to see, it definitely had not been this. 

Once he was able to see past the hazy red smoke that filled the room, Tony found himself unable to tear his eyes away from the sheer number of writhing bodies in various states of intoxication scattered inside. 

One guy hiked up the girl in his arms, his hand shifting well below the waistline and making Tony shift uncomfortably, as he tried to figure out whether he wanted to high tail it out of there or jump into the fray. Another girl looked over her partner’s shoulder, her eyes heavily lidded and head full of curls thrown back as she winked at Tony. He flushed, wildly casting his eyes about the room as he tried to find a safe space to rest his gaze.

He realized he was still cradling a watermelon in his arms like an idiot and hastily made to follow Bucky across the room, murmuring apologies and “pardon me’s” as he squeezed past. Tony quickly shifted the watermelon into the waiting arms of Bucky once he had safely made it to him, shaking out his arms to relieve some of the ache from holding onto it for so long.

Peering out into the crowd again, Tony turned to Bucky. “Where’d they learn to do that?” He asked, nodding at a couple who was rolling their hips into one another at the crest of every beat without fail. 

Bucky shrugged, following his gaze to the dance floor. “I dunno. Kids are doing it in their basements these days,” he said, his voice a little distracted as he looked out into the crowd, evidently searching for someone. He suddenly began to grin, waving wildly at whoever he’d been looking for. 

Tony nearly stopped breathing when he saw the blonde Adonis from before. At the centre of it all, holding up the leg of the redhead to his hip as he rolled his hips against hers, a wicked grin stretched across his lips. Bucky noticed him staring and grinned.

“That’s my best friend, Steve Rogers,” he explained, his grin growing wider when Tony flushed when he got caught looking. “He got me the job here.”

Tony nodded slowly, unable to look away from Steve Rogers and the way his biceps flexed every time he spun the redhead out from his chest and then brought her closer to him with one swift movement again. “They look great together,” Tony murmured, not really meaning for Bucky to hear him over the steady bass of the music. 

“Yeah, you’d think they were together, wouldn’t you?” Bucky mused, catching Steve’s eye once again and waving him over.

“Aren’t they?” Tony wondered, somehow willing his face not to turn as red as the lights flashing around them as Steve Rogers approached them, slowly pushing through the grinding bodies, his hand intertwined with the redhead’s. They stopped briefly as Nat reached out to grab a bottle of beer and tip it back into her mouth, throwing her head back, to the hoots and hollers of the guys gathered in a group nearby.

Bucky shook his head. “Nah, we all grew up together, and Nat’s fuckin’ scary,” he said, his grin growing wider as Steve Rogers and the redhead—Nat, emerged from the crowd, their faces gleaming with sweat.

“What’s he doing here?” Steve Rogers asked Bucky, nodding to where Tony was standing without sparing him a glance. Tony frowned, bristling indignantly as Nat looked him over scrutinously with a raised eyebrow.

“He’s with me,” Bucky supplied, wrapping an arm around Tony and pulling him closer to the group. Steve Rogers finally looked over at him, his golden hair sticking to his forehead and somehow not making him look like a drowned rat, his blue eyes guarded. 

“I carried a watermelon.”

As soon as the words pushed their way out of his mouth like a torrential storm, Tony immediately wanted to launch himself into the lake where the crocodiles or piranhas, or whatever carnivorous animal that lived there, could devour him peacefully. 

Steve’s hard look was ruined by the way the corner of his lips quirked up at Tony’s internal angst. His hesitant smile blew out into a wide grin as he noticed Tony’s feet tapping to the beat without his permission. Steve made a beckoning motion with his finger, pulling Tony into the middle of the dance floor.

Tony’s face was burning, he could tell, and it definitely wasn’t because of the overheated room. Steve wrapped an arm around his waist, pulling him right up against his chest. 

“Watch me. Watch my eyes,” Steve said when Tony kept his eyes glued to his feet. Tony swallowed when his eyes met Steve’s blue ones, and Steve rolled his hips against Tony’s, rotating in one direction and then the next. Tony tried to follow him, letting himself go loose in Steve’s arms as Steve took one of Tony’s arms and flung it over his own shoulder. Tony linked his fingers loosely behind Steve’s neck. They bounced and rolled and jived together to the blaring music that Tony could barely hear over the constant roaring in his ears. 

“Good,” Steve told him, eyes impressed as he grinned at him. Tony felt a prideful smile tugging at his lips, listening to the whoops and cheers going up around them as everyone else closed in around them. 

They were so close. Close enough that Tony could feel Steve’s breath on his nose as he wrapped both arms snugly around Tony’s waist and pulled him up to his front. Tony found himself nodding along to the beat, all of the nervous babble that had been parading through his brain just moments ago suddenly falling out somewhere near Steve’s shuffling feet. 

Steve spun him one last time, and Tony heard applause and cheers go up around the crowd as the song came to an end. When Tony managed to get his feet underneath him again, he opened his eyes to find that Steve was gone. He squashed the disappointment that rose within him and joined in on the cheering, absently feeling someone pat him on the back as he looked around, telling himself that he didn’t care where Steve had gone.

When he headed back to the cabin later that night, Tony laughed giddily to himself, feeling something big in his chest as he looked up at the moon and stars and remembered what it had felt like to be dancing with Steve, in his arms.


End file.
